The Art of Self-Deprecation
by BloodWings1992
Summary: Barty Crouch Jr. has a rough fourth year and you may finally understand why he twitches so much...


**A/N: This is for the Quidditch League FanFiction Competition. I was to write about a character chosen by my team in their fourth year. So, we wrote about Barty Crouch Jr.**

 **I'm Chaser #3 of the Wimbourne Wasps and these are the prompts I used:**

 **2: (word) detention  
4: (scene) sitting in an exam  
14: (word) appearance**

The Art of Self-Deprecation

 _1976- Fourth Year_

"This is a waste of my time," Barty whispered to himself as he looked around the classroom.

He noticed that every student had their head buried in a book and their hands were busy moving their quills across their parchment. Barty was irritated with the fact that he had to take this examination at all. He was far more skilled in Transfiguration than these other students and knew for a fact that the finished exam in front of him was a hundred percent correct. He had no doubts at all.

"Excuse me, Mr. Crouch. I believe you are to stay silent as the test is in progression, understood?" McGonagall said rather loudly from the front of the classroom.

"I do understand, professor. What I don't understand is why I have to take it," Barty said, surprising himself.

He had wondered where this sudden burst of rebellion came from and quietly wished he could turn it off. After he had said what he did, several of the students turned to look at him. The Ravenclaws just rolled their eyes in exasperation of his outbursts since he'd been showing off since his second year. Barty didn't look at any of the other students but one in particular did catch his eye. A Slytherin girl who had this very dainty but snobbish appearance about her. He had noticed her once before and he wondered if his rebellion was to showcase his strength towards her or if he was just trying to cause attention for himself.

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Crouch?" McGonagall called out, striding towards his desk.

"I could do Cross-Species Transfiguration in my sleep, professor. This is merely child's play," he retorted but the moment he did, he wished he hadn't.

The look on McGonagall's face sent a tremendous amount of terror through his bones but he couldn't let anyone see that. Especially the cute blonde who had her eyes fixated on him at that moment.

"If it is so easy, Mr. Crouch, perhaps you could demonstrate the art of Cross-Species Transfiguration," McGonagall snapped.

Everyone, at that point, had looked up from their test materials and placed their quills silently back in their ink. Barty tried not to let everyone see that he noticed all of their eyes on him and he desperately wanted to go back in time to make sure he never opened his mouth. However, he couldn't. He might as well keep up the act now.

"Absolutely," Barty said, standing from his desk and moving so that he was in front of McGonagall.

"I have some rules," McGonagall started.

"Of course you do," Barty muttered under his breath.

"If you can successfully cross this bullfrog then you will be excused from the testing area completely with an A on your exam. If you should fail, you will be excused from the testing area with an F and a week worth of detention cleaning these animal cages, understood?" she explained.

Barty just nodded once and caught a glimpse at the blonde who was watching him carefully with admiration. He took his wand out of his robe pocket and walked towards the front of the room where the bullfrog sat peacefully on McGonagall's desk. The bullfrog turned towards him in expectation and in that moment Barty became nervous. He knew that if he didn't do this correctly that he wouldn't just have a week's worth of detention on his record. He would have the loathing of every Ravenclaw sorted in the house, he would be mocked by every student attending Hogwarts, horrible grades, and confirmation of just how much his father hates him. He could deal with all of the consequences except that last one.

"We're waiting, Mr. Crouch," McGonagall called from her position in the center of the room.

The room was eerily quiet and he could feel every pair of eyes watch his every move. The only thing he could hear was his own breathing matched with his heartbeat. It was overcrowding his brain and by the time he went to mutter the curse, he knew immediately that he had muttered it incorrectly.

"Ah!" He shouted as he was sent backwards with the frog not far behind him.

It was almost like an explosion except much worse. He could hardly see anything and his vision had become quite blurry. He waved his arms around like a maniac trying to get off of the floor and once he was up his vision had cleared. Everyone around him looked horror stricken except for the Ravenclaws. They looked even more angry than they ever had been when it came to Barty.

"What a show-off," whispered some of the students.

"Scum," whispered the rest.

Whispers could be heard throughout the classroom and Barty finally turned around to look at McGonagall who was patiently pointing her finger to the door. He had flunked and he knew it the moment he opened his mouth. He felt a twitch that had not been there before and before he ran out of the classroom, he took one more look at the pretty blonde. She wasn't looking at him anymore as she had gone back to completing her test, completely ignorant of him and all he was. Of course, he was used to being ignored but he wasn't sure why it stung him as bad as it did.

Once he was safe in the corridor and hidden by a small indenture in the wall, he sighed heavily and his whole body racked with sobs. He stopped crying the moment he felt his tongue continue to dart in and out of his mouth. This had never happened to him before but his mouth could not stop twitching and his tongue could not stay still.

He had only partially cross-species another animal but what he had done caused him to cross-species with himself. He didn't even know he could do that. Not only was he going to be a freak for the rest of his life but now his father would completely disown him. The more upset he got the quicker his tongue reacted and he had to force himself to stop. He didn't know how to tell anyone about what had happened back there and he knew, for a fact, that it was something not even the most talented healers could fix. He was a freak. He was a show-off like his peers had said.

He was tired of always having to please someone. Why couldn't he just own up to being a screw up?

"Hey, what are you doing hiding out in here?" A perky brunette asked, peering around the corner.

She could see that he had been crying and was twitching rather fiercely. She noticed the tongue darting in and out of his mouth but she paid no mind to it.

"I've got a nervous twitch too, you know? I think we all do. If you take a moment to calm down it goes away," she smiled, hesitantly leaving him in his cubby while hurrying off to her next course of the day.

"That's what I'll do," he whispered to himself. "I'll pass it off as a nervous twitch."

He had done what she had said to do but the funny thing about that perky brunette, besides the fact that he didn't know her name, was that he never saw her again after that day. Then again, he had stopped looking.


End file.
